Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

Hello all,

I am a Permanent Resident Alien and my green card does not expire until 2017. My plans are to file for my Citizenship 1 year prior to its expiration. Legally, I am supposed to be a citizen as my mother became a citizen before I turned 18, but INS lost my documents but processed the check. I did not want to pay INS again anytime soon so I decided to wait to become a Citizen. Now that the groundwork has been established.

My fiance is asking what I wanted to for Xmas and I told her that I would like for her to give me and her a defensive pistol training class. I am proficient in firearms and have my CCW Permit and carry on a regular basis, but the class is to get my Fiance to start carrying. She's been to the range several times and is a dead on shooter. She still has her reservations about her handling of firearms even though we practice firearms safety religiously. She wants formal instruction which is why I requested that as my gift.

Fast forward to today, I went on the website of the local gun range that I frequent and for the first time saw the requirement for citizenship in order to receive instruction for Pistol or any firearms training. This was shocking since I've been on that site many times and have never seen that requirement before.
http://www.silvereaglegroup.com/seg-training/firearms

Blows my mind that permanent residents can purchase firearms but can't pay for training? Not that I need it, but for those who do not have friends that can teach or first time shooters looking to get into the hobby, sport or whatever you want to call it, is out of luck? That's a dumb rule, law, or policy if I can say so myself.

Anyone have insight if this is indeed federal law?

I've never heard of such a law. Did a little googling came up dry. Perhaps other can confirm..

Perhaps it a site policy and not a law?

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The site says:

** U.S. FEDERAL LAW REQUIRES YOU TO BE A U.S. CITIZEN TO TAKE THIS CLASS. YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO SHOW A FORM OF CITIZENSHIP ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS**

Doesn't sound like a local policy....

I saw that. I also see that no particular federal law is cited so a person could go read up. I believe there was once a great President that said "Trust, but verify."

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Come down to Richmond. We'll be happy to provide you with the training that you desire.

Jim

Considering you can own rifles with a W-8 (We researched because we work with a bulgarian who loves shooting), I think that's not a U.S. Law.

Someone prove me wrong.

Challenge SEG to cite the law. I suspect someone at SEG has wrongly interpreted the law or has wrongly cited the law as a basis for their own polity.

Chasbo00 wrote:Challenge SEG to cite the law. I suspect someone at SEG has wrongly interpreted the law or has wrongly cited the law as a basis for their own polity.

I did.
They have not responded, but then they haven't even had 24h yet, so we'll see.
I suspect your suspicion is correct, and would bet on the latter possibility....they have a policy they want to enforce, and not get any arguments, so they've made a false claim.

I also sent an email after posting this last night asking them to cite the section of the law that requires citizenship to get pistol training. If that's the case and it is their policy, I will stop using their range along with the many friends and family that I've introduced to them. Suck because it is one of the nicest ranges around this area.

Okay, I just have to ask... What training is this? I mean, what's the course name and what's it train you on?

See the link in the OP.

I, too, am definitely interested to hear their response to this.

I thought that as long as you are legal to possess a firearm, you could take a course involving a firearm.

I see that all say there is a requirement, but again..... What is the course name? Is it indeed the defensive pistol course 1?

scrubber3 wrote:I see that all say there is a requirement, but again..... What is the course name? Is it indeed the defensive pistol course 1?

According to the SEG web site, as linked in that OP, the citizen requirement is for ALL of their courses EXCEPT "Basic Firearms Maintenance" and "LEOSA." The site explicitly names Defensive Handguns 1.

My interest was level 1 Defensive Pistol Training, but even if you look at the site, Introduction to handguns require citizenship.

What I don't understand is that Permanent residents are not considered foreign nationals. Even when I purchased my handguns from a LGS, I had to answer that questions. I initially answered it wrong and said I was due to my confusion on how the law would interpret my residency.

I was told by the owner that if I was a green card holder, I am not a foreign national when filling out my ATF papers.

Until some cites the pertinent part of federal law, I'm wagering that they are masking a policy or preference behind this statement.

While I respect the rights of any business to select their clientele and refuse service based on policy (that doesn't violate law), I'd hope they would have the intestinal fortitude to actually say so rather than cop a "they made me do it!" plea.

Meanwhile, I'll wait for someone to fix this all up with "Oh, this is the statute right here!"

Looking around at other training sites and doing a little advanced Googling (my wife is a librarian and professional web searcher) it looks like the SEG confusion may be coming from ITAR, see http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations ... icial.html. A number of other training sites quote ITAR as a reason to train U.S. citizens only. But the subject is being discussed on several forums, and it seems that no one argues that ITAR is applicable. Yes, it mentions training, but only military training, on military systems. Yes, it has some prohibitions on passing certain things to non-U.S. persons....but goes on to define U.S. persons as "U.S. person means a person (as defined in § 120.14 of this part) who is a lawful permanent resident as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20)." And a green card holder is a lawful permanent resident.

So, even if some part of ITAR applied to restricting firearm training (and it does not), the restriction is not to U.S. citizens only.

I think SEG is out of bounds.

Agreed, I think they've overstepped trying to avoid any regulatory issues.

You think they'd want the extra money....